


tide pods

by LethalBookshelves



Series: your dad is calling [9]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Father-Son Relationship, Feel-good, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Irondad, Memes, Peter Parker & Shuri Friendship, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Team Cap friendly, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, everyone is mentioned im just lazy to tag, found family trope, no beta we die like men, omg my dumbass forgot to tag, peter and tony are pretending to be biologically related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 10:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19665358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LethalBookshelves/pseuds/LethalBookshelves
Summary: James “Bucky” Barnes has lived through a lot of things, been surprised often, but it still leaves him speechless when he watches Tony Stark attempt to keep his son from eating a piece of laundry detergent.“Kid, I swear to you, I will get rid of every bag of Doritos in this building if you put that Tide Pod anywhere near your mouth—”“But Shuri bet me 20 dollars I wouldn’t be able to eat it!”“I’m an actual billionaire, who cares about—Peter,don’t you even dare—”





	tide pods

**Author's Note:**

> did y'all notice they removed the 'spider-man: homecoming' fandom and replaced it with 'spider-man (tom holland movies)' sksjdjdj i was so confused on why i couldn't find it
> 
> i also saw far from home yesterday! gonna leave a spoiler-free rant at the end <3 enjoy!!

Bucky was nervous, to say the least. Although Tony had already given him and the Wakandan Royal Family access to the Tower, and Steve has told him himself that Tony forgave them. He also told him that Tony apparently had a son this whole time, which doesn’t make Bucky feel any better about his actions.

“I can feel your anxiety from here,” Shuri exclaims from the front of the plane. “How many times must we tell you that you are welcome before you believe it?”

“Shuri.” T’Challa warns from beside her, looking up from his tablet. “White Wolf, what is on your mind? I am sure talking about it will ease your worries.”

“It’s just… you know what I did as the Winter Soldier, and I can’t believe Stark would forgive me so easily.” Bucky admits, already used to this type of interrogation during his recovery from HYDRA’s brainwashing. “I know he’s told you he’s putting it in the past, and Stevie even told me they talked it out, but… I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should have let Stark give Bucky a call,” Shuri thinks out loud, “then it would feel like the forgiveness was more concrete.”

“We could call him now.” T’Challa says, but Bucky shakes his head.

“It’s stupid. We’re almost there anyways, so there’s no point in calling him.”

“It’s not stupid.” T’Challa sets his tablet beside him, the holographic screen disappearing as he does so. “What happened all those years ago was not your fault, and Tony knows this. He had offered to house you for months now, and has been housing those who were against him in the Civil War. Any bad blood has been settled.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything, choosing to fiddle with the new vibranium arm instead. Shuri looks out the window before announcing, “Stark Tower is close, let’s get ready to go.”

  
  
  


_ “The King and Princess?!” _ Peter screeches, alarmed. “You didn’t tell me they were  _ royalty!  _ Dad!”

Tony shrugs. “It’s no big deal; King T’Challa and I are going to discuss merging SI and Wakandan technologies, and his sister might join us, but I’ve been told she doesn’t particularly enjoy boring business meetings. She’s around your age, you could show her around.”

“Show around the  _ Princess of Wakanda? _ ” Peter looks about one second away from passing out, so Tony takes pity on his son and instead tells him:

“Barnes is also coming, so you can show him around too.”

_ “Sergeant James Barnes is coming too?!” _

“You can just call him Bucky, Peter.” Steve joins them on the landing pad, looking both excited and anxious for the arrival of his oldest friend. “He hasn’t been a Sergeant for a while.”

Tony snorts, placing a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Good luck trying to get him to drop titles before he even meets them.”

_ “Boss, the Wakandan team has arrived.” _ FRIDAY interrupts them, and Tony looks out to see the sleek design of the Wakandan aircraft land on the private landing grounds. He couldn’t wait to discuss things with T’Challa; with vibranium, the possibilities were endless.

“Thanks, sweetheart; alright, let’s go greet their majesties.” With an arm around Peter’s shoulders, he drags them out to watch their guests walk down the ramp. 

“Tony, it is good to see you again in person this time.” T’Challa has a ready smile, and Tony laughs when he gets close enough to them to shake hands.

“I’ll say. There’s only so much staring at holographic people I can do before losing my mind. This is Peter, by the way. I heard you sister was around the same age as him, so if she’s not feeling up to a business meeting Peter could show her around.” Tony thrusts his kid into the spotlight without much dilly-dallying so he couldn’t back out, and from the glare he receives Peter probably wasn’t appreciating it very much.

T’Challa’s gaze swings to Peter, and Tony could feel Peter inch the slightest bit closer to him. “Uh, hi, Your Majesty. I’m Peter. Which you already know, I guess, since Dad introduced me.”

“Hello, Peter. Please call me T’Challa, I know your father well. Shuri, come here and introduce yourself.” The Wakandan king calls his sister over from where she was conversing with the others. She skips over to them, eyeing Peter up and down with a calculating gaze, and Tony wanted to hide the boy behind him and chastise her. Fortunately, T’Challa beats him to it. “Shuri, be polite. This is Peter, Tony’s son. He will be showing you around while we are busy.”

Shuri continues to scrutinize for a second longer before her face breaks out into a smirk. “Do you like memes?”

“Oh no.” Tony laments when Peter perks right up. T’Challa groans too. “Please don’t tell me you both are going to do stupid things together.”

“Bold of you to assume I wasn’t going to do stupid things with or without her.” Peter retorts without hesitation, and Tony is both proud at the sass and insulted. He settles for smirking and lightly smacking the back of his head.

“Let’s move this party inside.” Tony hollers so everyone can hear him, and he gets some answering sounds that could possibly be taken as yesses. Peter and Shuri have started up a conversation involving the latest internet trends that Tony doesn’t pay much attention to as he himself talks to T’Challa before the man is taken away for something Okoye needed. Tony gives the female guard a nod in greeting, and gets one in return.

It hasn’t escaped his notice that Bucky had been hanging back and avoiding Tony, which he completely understood since he was doing the same thing. But now that they’re inside the common room, large as it is, there isn’t as many distractions to stop them from meeting.

When Tony catches sight of Bucky, he does tense up the slightest amount. Tony might have forgiven the man, but this was the first time they had met since the day Bucky had tried to kill Tony and vice versa. Peter was still underneath his arm and must have felt his father tense up because he pauses his chat with Shuri for long enough to send a confused look up at him.

In an effort to appear unphased, he jumps into the kids’ previous conversation. “What is it with you kids and those weird trends? They die out within a week of each other.”

Peter still looks a little put off, but indulges in Tony’s obvious change of topic. “You don’t understand because you’re, like, 80. What was the Great Depression like?”

Shuri cackles and the two high-five at Tony’s expression. “I’ll have you know only two people here are old enough to have lived through that and neither of them were me.”

“Yet they both look half your age.” Shuri joins in on the roasting session, and they high-five again, laughing.

Tony fake-sniffs, “I’m telling your mothers that you’re bullying your elders.”

“So you admit you’re an elderly?” Natasha pops up from the shadows, nearly sending Tony to an early grave (because, dammit, he’s still young!).

Tony scowls at her, and it causes the kids to burst into giggles. “Watch it, Romanoff. The bleached blonde look doesn’t make you look any younger.”

Natasha just raises an eyebrow at him before saying, “Steve and Bucky are gonna come around soon; I’m sure Peter’s excited to meet him again.” Tony nods thankfully at her; he needed a warning before meeting Barnes face-to-face.

“Mr. Barnes?” Peter quietly squeals from where he was still settled under Tony’s arm. “We had to learn all about him and Steve when we were younger, before we found out they were alive again. Ned and I used to pretend we were a part of the Howling Commandos when we were in Kindergarten.”

“That must have been one crazy Kindergarten recess.” Steve arrives with Bucky by his side, smiling pleasantly but with an undertone of protectiveness that Tony picks up easily. “I know we weren’t exactly kid-friendly during the war. Isn’t that right, Buck?”

Bucky shrugs, “I mean, you certainly swore a lot more back then, none of this ‘language’ business.” When he brought his arms up to do the air quotes, the light glinted off of the exposed metal. He’d worn a long sleeved shirt, but his hand was still out, and Peter’s eyes widened at the sight of it.

Peter gasps. “You got a  _ new _ metal arm?! Sick!”

“Pete!” Tony admonishes, but Bucky doesn’t look offended at all. If anything, he looked pleasantly surprised.

“So you  _ are  _ that spider thing from Germany.” Bucky states with some amusement. “You’re a lot stronger than you look.”

Peter ducks his head in slight embarrassment, but if Tony was known for being anything, it would be a proud dad. “He can easily shoulder-press 10 tons without breaking a sweat.”

“Dad…” Peter whines, jabbing him in the ribs. “Cut it out, I’m not that strong.” Tony gives him a Look, and then Peter backtracks. “Okay, I may be that strong. But I’m not skilled enough to take either of them on,” he gestures to Steve and Bucky.

The two give each other a Look as if to say ‘can you believe Stark is such a Dad’, which, yes, is a look Tony had seen many times already. 

“That is because you weren’t properly trained.” Now Loki appears out of nowhere and Tony curses.

“Can any of you make some goddamn noise before scaring the living daylights out of me?!” Tony huffs, the people around him laughing at his displeasure. “I swear you all don’t actually have feet.”

Natasha snorts. “You’re just ungraceful.”

“And you are ungrateful. Give me back the jacket I bought you.”

“Wanda has it now, and you wouldn’t want to take things that belong to your android son’s girlfriend, do you?” With that, Natasha takes a sip of something that could be vodka or the tears of her enemies. “Why don’t we train him?”

Tony blinks. “Vision? I dunno, he’s got lasers shooting out of his forehead.”

Natasha pokes him in the side. “No, genius. Peter. He’s strong but he doesn’t know how to control that strength.”

Peter gasps. “I get to train with the Black Widow?! Oh, Dad, please let me.”

“C’mon, Stark Sr., it’ll be some spider solidarity.” Natasha smiles innocently at him, and Tony doesn’t trust it one bit. “I promise I’ll return him in one piece.”

“Why is it that when you promise to keep him safe I fear even more for his life?” The man deadpans, but one look at his son’s puppy eyes has him caving. “Ugh, fine. But only when it isn’t a school night and only after he’s finished all his homework.”

Clint coughs from where he sat on the sofa. “Such a Dad.”

“Not a word from you, Spy Who Literally Had An Entire Secret Family.” Tony warns, no real ire in his tone. “As much as I loved talking with everyone, T’Challa and I have a meeting to attend to. Shuri, you coming?”

The princess doesn’t even hesitate before going: “Absolutely not. I have your two very fun sons to hang out with instead.” She gestures to Vision and Peter.

“Tony? Are you coming? Oh, hello! It’s good to see you again, T’Challa, Shuri, Okoye. And you too, Mr. Barnes.” Pepper exits the elevator, smiling brightly at their visitors. “The meeting room has been prepped. Peter, have you eaten yet?”

“I ate earlier, Mom.”

“What exactly did you eat?”

“...Leftover pizza.”

Pepper tuts and steers him in the direction of the kitchen, causing Tony’s arm to drop from the boy’s shoulders. “Eat something healthier, May doesn’t like it when all you boys eat is junk food. There’s leftover fried rice and potato salad in the fridge. Have FRIDAY order something if you don’t feel like eating the leftovers.”

“But Mom, I was gonna show Shuri the lab.” Peter whines even though he knows arguing with Pepper was futile.

“The lab will still be there in 20 minutes. Tony, King T’Challa, please follow me.” Pepper’s ponytail swishes behind her as she walks away, her head held high and her heels even higher, and Tony has a moment to think about how lucky he was that she was his fiancée.

“Later, kid. Don’t blow up the lab when I’m gone.” He ruffles Peter’s hair as he walks by, receiving another whine from the teen. “Vision, as the brother with more common sense, make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

The android, now cloaked as a human, nods. “Of course, sir.”

“And drop the ‘sir’, makes me feel old. Just call me Tony.”

“Of course, Tony.”

The billionaire gives a backwards wave to everyone left in the room before joining Pepper in the elevator.

  
  
  


It takes two hours before something goes wrong, which was a lot longer than Tony was expecting. He was expecting FRIDAY to inform him Peter had accidentally set his hair on fire an hour ago. Instead of FRIDAY, Vision phases through the roof and into the meeting room. 

“Apologies for my odd choice of travel; I was in a rush.” Vision says, and Tony decides that watching the human visage of him go through the ceiling is a lot more off-putting than when he was a red robot.

To T’Challa’s credit, he doesn’t even flinch. “No apology needed. It is quite interesting how you can do that with the vibranium body, maybe we could research about it.”

“Maybe later, T’Challa. Vision, what’s the emergency?” Tony stands up from his chair, walking over to him.

“Well, Tony, it appears that Peter and Shuri are going to go through with an internet trend that could be hazardous to young Peter’s health.” Vision states calmly, and Tony’s pulse quickens. “Now, I don’t want to alarm you but you should probably head up to the common room’s kitchens as soon as possible.”

“I think you should know by now I literally cannot keep myself calm when it comes to that boy.” Tony mutters as he dashes to the elevator, T’Challa hot on his heels. “Vision, go back up and make sure they don’t kill themselves. Ugh, teenagers. I swear they were born just to get on our nerves.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” T’Challa hums.

“FRIDAY, take us up to these rascals, fast.” Tony doesn’t know what to expect when the doors open, but it wasn’t to the sight of Vision trying to coax his kid to put down a small green pod in his hands, Peter adamantly refusing, Shuri laughing as she points a phone camera at them, and Bucky sitting on the kitchen island trying to eat a plum looking extremely confused. 

Tony can feel his hair turning gray.

  
  
  


James “Bucky” Barnes has lived through a lot of things, been surprised often, but it still leaves him speechless when he watches Tony Stark attempt to keep his son from eating a piece of laundry detergent.

“Kid, I swear to you, I will get rid of every bag of Doritos in this building if you put that Tide Pod anywhere  _ near _ your mouth—”

“But Shuri bet me 20 dollars I wouldn’t be able to eat it!”

“I’m an actual  _ billionaire _ , who cares about—Peter,  _ don’t you even dare—” _

Shuri laughs hysterically at them, filming the whole thing.

Maybe he should’ve stayed in Wakanda.

“Dad, I won’t die! I’d metabolize the chemicals fast enough that they wouldn’t harm me too bad.”

“Do I need to call your mom? Because don’t think I won’t sink low enough not to call either her or your Aunt May.” Tony threatens, still glaring at the Tide Pod in his son’s hands. “You know the two of them would not be as nice as I am.”

That makes Peter hesitate. “Fine. You play dirty, Dad.”

The man sighs, taking the small orb and returning it to underneath the kitchen sink. “FRIDAY, make sure Peter never opens this cabinet.”

_ “Sure thing, Boss.” _

“Awh, how disappointing.” Shuri pouts and then is immediately wacked by her brother. “Hey! What was that for?”

“Almost sending Peter into the emergency room.” T’Challa scolds, and it sounds like he’s had this conversation far too many times.

“I wouldn’t have, sir, I swear. We did the calculations for it and in the worst case scenario I’d just throw up and have a bad fever for a day or two.” Peter jumps to defend his new friend. Tony sighs, taking a seat next to Bucky at the kitchen island.

“The whole ‘Civil War’ thing was less stressful than taking care of this teenager.” Tony mutters, and it’s clear that he’s just joking around so Bucky shouldn’t feel too uncomfortable with the topic, but it still makes him shift.

“Look, Stark, I’m really sorry about what happened then. Not just in Germany but in Siber—”

“It’s fine, it’s the past. No need to talk about it.” Tony is quick to cut him off, eyeing Peter nervously. The boy was still talking to T’Challa and Shuri, blissfully unaware of the conversation. Bucky is confused; did Stark not tell his son what happened after the airport fight? Apparently Spider-man had been sent home after a nasty fall, so perhaps younger Stark had no clue his father had gone after him and Steve. “Thanks, though. For apologizing. It’s time to move on now.”

Bucky nods, understanding that this wasn’t a conversation the other man wanted to have in front of his kid. Bucky himself wasn’t eager to talk about what his deranged counter-part did either, so he continues munching on his plum.

He stays quiet as he watches Tony get up to make Peter something more edible, the two of them trading jabs without hesitation, but the way they looked at each other and the constant physical affection they shared—from the arm around the shoulders to the hair ruffles to hip bumps—takes any heat away from the words.

He still stays quiet when Steve and the rest of the team and co. join them in the kitchen, instead choosing to observe how everyone interacts with each other. Bucky hadn’t really interacted with anyone other than Sam and Steve prior to being put back into the ice, and he finds the way everyone slots into place amongst each other very bittersweet.

There was the Stark family: Tony, Pepper, Rhodes, May, and Peter. Rhodey might not have been blood, but neither was Vision; their family had nothing to do with what flowed through their veins. The women are teasing the men about the Tide Pod incident from earlier, and Tony was trying to defend his blackmailing and Peter was trying to defend his choice to willingly eat detergent. Bucky had never met May before, but the woman had smiled and shook his hand, introducing herself as Peter’s aunt.

The Wakandan family were also close by, and it appears that Peter and Shuri really hit it off, and Bucky could see they were also including Wanda in the conversation. It was nice to see her interact with others around her own age.

Clint and Natasha were sharing entertaining stories of training and missions, and Sam was having the time of his life with all this new embarrassing material. Thor and Loki would occasionally share their own stories from their youth, and Bruce laughed quietly with them.

It was like a large extended family reunion, and it made Bucky’s stomach roil in unease.

It’s when Wanda is floating in the air with Peter and Shuri that Steve tries to get him to talk. “Buck, what are you thinking about?”

The ex-assassin sighs. “Stevie, I don’t belong here. This is family.”

“You’re my family, Bucky. You know that.” Steve frowns, not quite understanding. 

Bucky shakes his head. “This is  _ your _ family, Steve. I know how much you care for everyone here, and I’m just… not a part of it.”

“You’ve only been here less than a day, Buck, of course you’re not going to feel as familiar with everyone so quickly. I know that once you gain some footing, you’ll love it here. You could even upgrade to be a real Avenger, I’m sure Tony has all the required documents already.”

“This isn’t just the Avengers, though. This is also Stark’s family, and after what I did—” Bucky argues quietly, but an unexpected voice cuts through the private conversation.

“I already told you, you’re forgiven.” Tony places two plates of food in front of the super soldiers, press smile in place. “You’ll always have a place here, Barnes, but I can understand if you’d rather have somewhere closer to home. Just tell Natasha a place and Fury’ll help you get settled, but I’m sure Steve here would much rather you close by.”

“I… I don’t know what to say.” Bucky admits quietly, eyes pointed down at his metal hand.

The billionaire softens a bit at the motion, smile becoming more genuine. “A ‘thank you’ would suffice. And maybe let Pete look at your arm a bit, if you were privy to it. He’s very excited about it, you see; talked my ear off about how you were a real life cyborg.”

That draws a laugh out of him. “He can check it out anytime.”

“Anytime?” Tony raises an eyebrow, smirking. “Ohhhh Peter! Barnes says you can look at his arm now!”

“Seriously?!” Peter shrieks from the living room, where all the younger ones were still floating around. “Thank you so much, Mr. Barnes, sir! Wanda, float me over there, please!”

Before Wanda could do anything, Natasha just grips him by the ankle and pulls him over to the kitchen island as if Peter was a balloon. “Oh wow, thanks Auntie Nat! Uh, Wanda, how do I get down?”

“Did Wanda get demoted from Auntie privileges?” Tony jokes, reaching up to drag Peter down onto a stool.

“Nah, we just decided she’s too close to my age to be my aunt. She’s just gonna be the cool-big-sis-slash-older-cousin type.” Peter states matter of factly, and the adults give each other quick looks. Wanda had only lost her brother a few years ago, so for her to decide to act as a faux sister figure? It was a lot of progress.

“Well, don’t bother Barnes too much Pete, we still have a lot of food to eat. Everyone! Grab a plate!” 

**Author's Note:**

> none of you guessed it was bucky who was visiting in the last chapter!! some of you did mention shuri though, so kudos to you <3 
> 
> okay so far from home? insane. i'm usually a sucker for spoilers, but i managed to hold myself back from spoiling myself too much for this movie and WOW, that was a lot of fun (maybe, i'm still deciding)! don't spoil it for others in the comments, but i'm down for some incoherent screaming ;)


End file.
